LaRouche followers drawing complaints

Booth depicts Obama as Hitler; ‘We get calls when they show up,’ says RSF security chief

Residents and shoppers in Rancho Santa Fe have filed complaints with the community’s neighborhood association about a political group that frequently sets up a display in the upscale village depicting President Barack Obama wearing a Hitler mustache.

The group supports Lyndon LaRouche, a 90-year-old political activist who advocates the impeachment of Obama and himself ran for president eight times between 1976 and 2004. LaRouche was jailed for mail fraud and tax evasion in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

About once a month for the past couple of years, a couple of his supporters have set up a booth outside the Rancho Santa Fe post office and Stumps Village Market, seeking to get out their message, raise money and have people sign up for a mailing list on the website

“We get calls when they show up,” said Matt Wellhouser, chief of the Rancho Santa Fe Patrol, a private security service operated by the Rancho Santa Fe Association. The organization enforces land-use regulations on about 1,900 private properties in Rancho Santa Fe known as the Covenant.

“It’s frustrating for folks because they understand the shopping center is private property, but it’s open to the public,” Wellhouser said. “People like this can legally do what they do, as long as they don’t interfere with the operation of the business.”

He said interference includes blocking a doorway or the sidewalk, keeping people from parking, or going inside a business.

The last time the LaRouche group set up at the Village was Nov. 14. Wellhouser said his office received the first complaint call at 9:49 a.m. and they received about three calls that day.

He said they’ve received as many as 20 calls on the day the group stops by, including complaints from patrons and employees.

The group has also been spotted in other North County markets, in La Jolla and in other San Diego locations, he said.

Susan Woolley, who owns the shopping center that houses the market and post office, said the group has offended and harassed many people in the Village, but are on their best behavior when the patrol and sheriff deputies are around.

She said they’ve blocked her from getting out of her car when she pulls up, and they’ve blocked a friend of hers from getting out of a car.

“They’re not gracious people,” Woolley said. “I’ve asked (patrons), ‘Please don’t talk to them, don’t give them any money, and don’t sign any petitions,’ because if they don’t have any of those three things, eventually they’ll go somewhere else, won’t they?”

Angela Vullo, a representative for LaRouche’s Virginia-based political action committee, said the group believes the Obama administration is subverting the Constitution and accelerating the war drive. She said supporters set up booths randomly in different places throughout the country to organize people around its solution.

The booth in Rancho Santa Fe is usually manned by just two people, according to Wellhouser.

“We’re openly campaigning to remove Barack Obama (from office) and we’re campaigning for a bill, (the) Glass-Steagall (Act), which would end the bailout of Wall Street and international banks,” Vullo said. “We’re recruiting people to our ideas and hoping to save the country.”

She said reports of harassment by people manning the booths are inconsistent with the feedback she’s been receiving. She said the reason people are offended is because they don’t like what they’re saying about the president.

“The country is very polarized right now. What we’re saying is really flying in the face of popular opinion,” she said.

Woolley said the group has become even more offensive since the recent election and was more aggressive during their last visit to the Village. She said they followed people to their cars, and blocked them from going in and out of the market.

“They came in furious, saying they wouldn’t shop at the market,” she said.

Woolley said the center, which was built by her husband in 1974, welcomes community groups such as the Brownies, Cub Scouts, and even other political groups, to solicit on the property.

The LaRouche group is rude and uninvited, she said, and she’s asked them to leave numerous times.

Woolley said she’s not able to legally evict the LaRouche group from her property because they “go under the guise of a political group” and have not been caught interfering with businesses.

She’s hoping there will be some resolution and that the community will come together and encourage them to leave legally.

“They’ve caused nothing but problems for two years, and I think people are just at their wits’ end,” Woolley said.